NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

This well produced magazine has a substantial content of poetry and prose, essays and reviews. The editorial by Michael S. Begnal (which tells us also that this is the first issue he has edited alone) is concerned with the relation between the art of poetry and the poetry of politics, and concludes with an excellent paragraph discussing the form and the content of a poem (or the How and the What, as Begnal calls them) which contains sound and wise advice for any aspiring poet. Begnal also discusses, in an illuminating review of the poets published by the Wild Honey Press, another relation, that between the mainstream tradition of Irish poetry (which became in the last century, "the Yates-Kavanagh-Heaney axis") and the alternative experimental or avant-garde, to the encouragement of which THE BURNING BUSH is devoted.

However, if there is one influence noticeable in this issue, it is the Beats. Thus Corso (died 2001) is commemorated on the back cover, and John Thomas Menesini has a short essay linking the Celtic oral tradition with Kerouac (and further, with hip-hop). Not that the Mainstream tradition is absent; in fact Begnal's two traditions are combined in one poet, John W. Sexton, who contributes a Ginsbergian PRAYER TO ALLEN GINSBERG as well as THE WILLOWED GROVE, a Yatesian ballad complete with irregular rhythm and half-rhymes, though not, in my view, quite the Yatesian tone:

      I went down to the willowed grove,
      where the river troubles itself with stones,
      and met a woman made of shadow
      making herself a coat of thorns.

Isn't this going too far? However much one might speculate on Wilde, Kerouac and Catholicism, and on whether the shared "addiction to ritual, church theatre, and Latinity accounted for the poetic, myth-making quality of both writers' prose," one might also notice quite a few differences between them. (The cynical formality of Wilde's writing, for example.) One might also respond cynically to this dependence on the Beats as a foundation for THE BURNING BUSH: "Experimental? Avant-garde? The Beats are SO twentieth-century!" And perhaps even earlier than that. Begnal, in his review of Liddy, draws our attention to the similarity of form between some lines of Liddy and some by the "less-famous" Beat poet, Bob Kaufman. But one might just as well point out the similarity of both to the Daddy of all incantatory poets, Walt Whitman. Besides, Liddy writes plenty of poems which are not noticeably Beat-influenced at all. His perspectives and his skills are wide.

As well as critical writing, this issue contains two stories by Sam Millar and Kevin Doyle, which I found unpleasant and very unpleasant, respectively. Fortunately I enjoyed the poetry contributions almost without exception. They start with three excellent poems by the Cuban-American Virgil Suarez, and continue with thoughtful, deep, witty or exciting poems by poets from around the world. Most are "free form," though hardly experimental these days. A Manx poem by Bob Carswell is helpfully translated into Irish, seeing that few readers of the magazine will understand Manx. Just to be fair, the Welsh poem by Robert Lacey is self-translated into English. Kieran Furey's ACCOUNT OF LODGER WITHDRAWING AFTER MAKING DEPOSIT begins

      Condemned for her Eveish sin
      Daniella in the lines' din
      Between local stations of the cross
      Town variety commuting her sentence . . .

I certainly found a great deal to enjoy, to contemplate, and to respond to in THE BURNING BUSH. An impressive, stimulating magazine.

The issue opens with the editorial statement:

The Burning Bush has been a failure. Having set out to promote "underground" and "experimentalism" (as I actually wrote in the first issue), the magazine did initially manage to garner some attention, probably more than expected. It soon became apparent, however, that the Revolution of the Word was not suddenly going to materialise in Ireland. Nor were the big-time publishers and critics suddenly going to swing into line behind it.

Whereas the modern visual arts years ago achieved their revolution, or evolution, into modernity, gradually winning over a relatively mass public that could appreciate such works without turning its back on the past, modern poetry has not achieved a similar success at least here and generally in Britain.

The issue has a healthy number of poems, including the three-page CODA by Maurice Scully which begins:

	Hey-you! goes the train on the line
	       setting & abetting
	        clack-at-a-click

	      turning on its stern
	         the Then &
	           the Far

There is a lot of smoke emanating from the Burning Bush — its flames may not be roaring but they are smouldering gently and don't look like dying out for a good time yet.

An Irish magazine THE BURNING BUSH provides a good mix of poetry, prose and reviews. A strong sense of national identity sits comfortably alongside work from a range of international writers.

This issue opens strongly with Gearóid Mac Lochlainn's poem LON DUBH LOCH LAO in Gaelic and English; I enjoyed its density of images, objects and descriptions:

	Streets hummed with om and tones of barter:
	guineas, shillings, ducats, crowns, florins, euros, dollar.
	Everything was up for grabs and anything could be bought:
	from needles to anchors, keys, kegs and garters,
	harpoons, tin fiddles, flutes, lathes and leather,
	the manuscripts of Pádraic Fiacc laced with
	blades, buckshot, loose cannons, guillotines and gallows.

	I sit here as light
	goes, thinking of you
	crossing mountains at 
	night — stars

	so close and bright
	you could've touched
	them.

Nina Quigley's DOLLY haunted me in a different way; it opens

	Dolly lies dashed
	on the back door step.

	the rank plastic smell of her
	opens up a memory box
	deep in your head,
	but stiff fingers resist
	your cheek's longing to cherish,
	the kissing better of your lips.

THE BURNING BUSH engages the reader both with quality poetry and thought-provoking reviews and essays on contemporary literature. While of particular pertinence to those interested in Irish literature, it also sweeps its net wider and presents some good catches.

Steadily growing in strength and reputation, and challenging (perhaps unconsciously) to become Ireland's most evocative small press mag. This issue is a mixture of Irish and American poets with a couple of UKers. There's a good long poem BERRYMAN IN PARIS (In 1953 with his first wife Eileen, or in 1967? This isn't made clear) by Todd Swift; Higgins, Tyler-Bennett, Alan Jude Moore, Supranowicz. A few Gaelic poems too. The reviews by the editor and half a dozen others are well written and edifying. Recommended. Send cheques to the industrious editor.

This is the final issue of The Burning Bush. The editor says

I've just reached a point where I feel, at least for the moment, that it ought not to be me who publishes it. Editing and publishing a literary magazine takes a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. Paradoxically, to do so slowly saps that same energy and enthusiasm. It is a struggle (for all the usual reasons one might imagine). It can also divert one's creativity away from one's own work.

It seems to me the life of a literary magazine follows a certain trajectory — it comes into being through triumphant struggle, sacrifice both personal and financial, but maybe with some instant payback (the acclaim that often accompanies the launch of a new publishing outlet), it sustains itself through the rush of war, the sense of mission, the refusal to give in to the critics who inevitably gather if the magazine actually attempts to be something other than just another all-embracing platform for the usual suspects (or departs from, say on the one hand, a Dublin-centric worldview, or on the other, the easy old political leftism of the fringes of the small press), finally, these battles fought (and won!), the point having been made, it is desirable that it passes away suddenly, just as harshly, before it can settle into complacency, listlessly fulfilling its audience's expectations.

One thing, I'm sure of, we won't have heard the last of Michael S. Begnal — he's an Irish tiger — according to my spell-checker which keeps trying to change his name to Bengal!